Starting as the heir of a marquis's mansion, I gained access to a summoning system.

Lin Xiaoman gripped the short bamboo cane tightly. Her lips were trembling, not from fear, but from muscle spasms caused by clenching her teeth too tightly.

She knew very well what the Supreme Realm meant—the top dozens of people on the Tianwu Continent, each of whom was an old monster who had lived for thousands of years or even longer.

The reason why Lu Moshen was hunted down by the Lord of the Undying Palace was because he was targeted by a Supreme Realm expert.

Now, even before Dongfang Weiwo has reached the Life and Death Realm, he has already attracted the attention of at least three Supreme Realm experts.

She took a deep breath, took out a jar of bone-protecting ointment from her medicine pouch, and with trembling but precise movements opened the lid. She then applied the dark green ointment to the shallow pit on Dongfang Weiwo's left shoulder that had been burned by the corrosive liquid of the bone-eating beast.

The moment the ointment touched the skeleton, the residual venom left by the corrosion was forced out by the dark green medicinal power, turning into a foul-smelling black smoke.

On the eighth breath, the sword domain began to tremble violently.

Yan Fei's hand holding the sword trembled slightly, and his knuckles turned white.

Nine breaths later, the sword domain shrank from a hundred feet to fifty feet. The Blood Infant Granny condensed a smaller but more solid bone demon phantom fifty feet away, and the Bone Devouring Beast opened its huge mouth again under the urging of Wanqifeng's whip.

Ten breaths later, Yan Fei sheathed his sword. The sword domain vanished in an instant, and all the space covered by the laws of swordsmanship was once again filled with the laws of the Tianwu Continent.

The suppression restriction took effect again, and Dongfang Weiwo's cultivation level was suppressed from the mid-stage of the Yin-Yang Realm back to the early stage of the Yin-Yang Realm.

Yan Fei knelt on one knee, his old sword planted in the gravel ground to support his body. The cuffs of his blue cloth robe were mostly stained red with blood—this was not a superficial wound, but an internal injury caused by the backlash of the Heavenly Martial Law.

His inner core withstood pressure beyond its limit in the Ten-Breath Sword Domain just now, and the fact that it didn't shatter is already a testament to the incredible resilience of the Three Elements Unity Realm.

But he will need at least seven days to recover.

"Walk."

Yan Fei raised his head, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his blood-stained lips.

"Don't worry about me. They wouldn't dare kill a sword cultivator who can sever the gaze of a Supreme Realm expert."

Seven days later, I will go to the Blackwater Swamp to find you.

He pulled the old sword from the ground and drew a very faint blue line in the air with the tip, pointing southeast. That was the direction of the entrance to the Blackwater Swamp.

Without hesitation, Dongfang Wei grabbed Lin Xiaoman's hand and, leaning on his bamboo cane, rushed towards the direction the sword tip was pointing.

Lin Xiaoman stumbled as he pulled her, and her bamboo cane almost slipped from her hand, but she gritted her teeth and steadied herself, pressing her other hand firmly against the medicine pouch to prevent the jar from flying out.

The two rushed out of the ancient road outside the south gate and, before the more than sixty rogue cultivators could regroup, they slipped into the dense forest ruins on the west side of the ancient road, which had been leveled by the shockwave of the Bone Demon's phantom.

Blood Infant Granny sternly ordered Blood Dry Old Man to lead his men to give chase, but Blood Dry Old Man had only taken one step when an old sword flew from behind him and nailed to the ground three inches in front of him. The blade was half a foot deep in the soil, and the hilt was still vibrating.

The old man withered blood suddenly stopped in his tracks. A sharp pain shot through his left shoulder, which was wrapped in bandages—the sword's energy had aggravated his old injury from half a foot away.

Yan Fei knelt on one knee, blood still dripping from the corner of his mouth, but there was no sign of weakness in his eyes.

He drew a line on the ground in front of him with his blood-stained fingers. The line was very shallow, just a thin mark made by his knuckles on the gravel.

"Those who cross the line shall die."

The old man withered blood swallowed hard and retreated. More than sixty rogue cultivators formed a loose fan shape, but none of them dared to cross the line.

They looked at the swordsman in blue cloth kneeling on one knee on the gravel ground, and at the thin, almost invisible line in front of him.

Looking at the old sword stuck in the ground behind him, still trembling, no one wanted to risk their life to test the limits of a sword cultivator in the Reincarnation Realm.

Wan Qifeng dragged the bone-eating beast with its broken horn, hopping and cursing a dozen times on the barren hill, his voice already tinged with sobs.

Blood Infant Granny retracted the half-shrunken Bone Demon phantom, her hands trembling beneath her bone robes—not from injury, but from anger.

Thirty percent of the foundation of her three-hundred-year-old Bone-Changing Technique has been severed, and she cannot recover without ten years of arduous cultivation.

She knew she couldn't defeat Dongfang Weiwo tonight, but she also knew that the price this young man paid for escaping from her would be repaid in a far more devastating way in the near future.

On the south gate wall of Iron Feather City, Bai Wuchen slowly released his hand from the hilt of his sword and let out a long breath.

"In seven days, the ranking of the Supreme Realm in the Tianwu Continent will be re-established."

Master Mo stopped tapping his index finger in his sleeve, remained silent for a long time, then turned and gave an order to his steward.

"Send a message to the Iron Feather City headquarters, saying that the Black Scale Merchant Guild's distinguished guest, Young Master Dongfang, is still alive. I, Mo San, am betting on him. I'm betting that he can survive this month."

In the shadows at the highest point of the city tower, Ya Jiu examined the Reincarnation Escape Talisman between his fingers several times before finally retracting his black robe.

He watched two figures rapidly disappearing into the depths of the dense forest, and a very soft sigh escaped from beneath his hood.

"He didn't pinch it."

Ya Jiu muttered to himself.

"He doesn't even bother with the Reincarnation Escape Talisman. This guy is either a madman or even tougher than Lu the Demon God."

He remained silent for a moment, then his figure transformed into a cloud of black mist, silently dissipating into the shadows of the city tower.

The escape talisman was still in his possession. Next time they met, he would definitely ask him directly—why didn't you use it?

The darkness deep in the forest was ten times thicker than inside Ironfeather City.

The pale blue light was fragmented by the layers of tree canopy, and when it fell on the forest clearing, it was so weak that it could only illuminate the outlines of objects.

Dongfang Weiwo led the way, leaning on his bamboo cane. Each time the end of the cane touched the ground, it precisely avoided dead branches and pebbles, minimizing the sound it made.

Lin Xiaoman followed three steps behind, her breathing rapid but not disordered.

The medicine pouch swayed rhythmically on his back, and the crisp sound of the jars colliding was mostly absorbed by the linen partition.

She had been running for an hour straight; the muscles in her calves were trembling violently, and her lips were dry and cracked from dehydration, but she didn't utter a sound.

The blue line that Yan Fei drew during his breakout was not a random gesture.

The sword intent pointed to a location accurate to the millimeter—southeast. After passing through the dense forest ruins, there was a low hilly area, and further ahead was the mountain valley where the Black Scale Merchant Guild's abandoned mine was located.

Before the auction began, Master Mo had already engraved the location of the stronghold on the back of the black iron token. The map was simple.

But the key landmarks are all there—three iron burl trees struck by lightning are arranged in a triangular pattern, with charred bark and hollow trunks. The mine entrance is located just below the root system of the tree in the very center of the triangular pattern.

"arrive."

Dongfang Weiwo stopped in front of the three ironwood trees, used his bamboo cane to push aside the withered vines wrapped around the roots, revealing a black iron rock gate that was slanted into the mountain.

The door bears the emblem of the Black Scale Merchant Guild—a large black-scaled serpent coiled on iron feathers, with a groove for its eye, the shape of which perfectly matches the token given by Master Mo.

He pressed the token in, and a dark golden light shone from the snake's eyes. The iron gate slid silently into the mountainside, revealing a downward-sloping passageway.

Fragments of luminescent stones are embedded in the stone walls on both sides of the passageway, providing dim light but enough to illuminate the way.

The air was dry and chilly, carrying a mixed smell of rust and old wood.

The mine was small, but it had everything it needed.

The main hall is an expanded natural cave with a dome about three zhang high. In the center is a long table of black iron rock and several stone chairs, and in the corner are several boxes of well-preserved dry food and water.

The side cave is a simple alchemy room. Traces of medicine residue left by the previous user remain on the stone platform. It is clear that the Black Scale Merchant Guild's caravan once used this place as a transit warehouse.

Deep inside is a mine tunnel leading into the mountain, long abandoned, its wooden supports covered with moss that emits a ghostly green glow.

As soon as Lin Xiaoman entered the mine, she collapsed onto a stone chair.

My legs were shaking so badly it felt like the bones had been removed.

She took a few deep breaths, then took out the six jars of bone-protecting ointment from her medicine bag and placed them one by one on the stone table. By the faint light of the luminous stone, she carefully checked whether the jars had been cracked while running.

All six jars were intact. She breathed a sigh of relief, then pulled a small cloth bag from the inner layer of the medicine pouch—a gift secretly given to her by the female deacon of the Black Scale Merchant Guild before she left.

It contains half a pound of ironwood powder. The quality isn't great, but it's enough to make three jars of bone-strengthening ointment.

"Senior Yanfei's injury..."

She looked at Dongfang Weiwo, but swallowed her words halfway through.

"Seven days."

Dongfang Wei leaned his bamboo cane against the stone table, sat cross-legged, and began to introspect.

"If he says seven days, then it must be seven days. The backlash from the Heavenly Martial Law cannot be cured by external forces; his own Three Yuan Inner Core will slowly repair itself."

For these seven days, we must rely on ourselves.

Lin Xiaoman didn't ask any more questions. She poured the half-pound of ironwood powder into the copper furnace, then took out the resurrection grass seeds and bone drynaria from her medicine bag and began to brew a new batch of bone-protecting ointment.

The firelight reflected on her face, and the old scar on the bridge of her nose appeared and disappeared in the flickering light.

Her hands were steady, and she followed the steps of preparing the medicine without any mistakes, but she kept muttering something to herself—Dongfang Weiwo heard her clearly.

She was reciting the herbal formula passed down through generations of the Lin family's guardians, as if using this method to suppress the unease in her heart.

He drew his attention back to his body.

The condition of the divine and demonic skeleton is stable but not optimistic.

Yan Fei's sword domain bought him a ten-breath window to break through and also blocked the frontal attacks from Blood Infant Granny and Bone-Eating Beast. However, he still suffered multiple injuries during the breakout. The shallow pit on his left shoulder, burned by the corrosive liquid, has been basically repaired and filled with dark gold material.

While traversing a dense forest, his right arm was pierced by a sharp piece of broken wood, causing the skin and flesh to tear and leaving a three-inch-long thin mark on the surface of his skeleton, which is slowly healing itself.

The most troublesome part was the left shinbone—while dodging a barrage of bone spears on the ancient road, a Blood Bone Cult bone spear grazed the surface of the shinbone without hitting it directly.

However, the death energy attached to the bone spear had already seeped into the micropores on the surface of the tibia.

The dark gold substance is engaged in a tug-of-war with the death energy, forcing it out of the bone holes bit by bit, at a rate at least half slower than usual.

Where death energy lingers, the fusion rate between the skeleton and the Heavenly Martial Qi will be disrupted. If it is not thoroughly cleaned, the shinbone will become a weak point when attacking with full force next time.

He urged the dark gold energy within his body to accelerate purification, while simultaneously sinking his consciousness into his dantian.

The key seal was stimulated in the sword domain, and its rotation speed was nearly twice as fast as before. Each rotation left a dark golden ripple in the center of the dantian.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine ancient array patterns slowly rotated around the key seal, with three patterns being brighter than the others—corresponding to the ulna he fused with at Shattered Bone Ridge, the trace fragments in the Lin family's Bone-Guarding Incense, and the tenth pattern itself.

The lighting of these three lines is not accidental; they all point to one fact.